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Ad Manager is a complete banner ad management system that allows you to control the appearance of ads you create, or are created for you, in many ways. Adds are images - animated gifs, jpegs or other types of graphics formats.

By placing "location tags" in various 'holes'* on pages throughout your web site WebAdmin allows you to control which ads appear where, how frequently they will appear, where the user is taken when they click and you can track how often they are seen and clicked on.

Ads can also be organized by "Advertiser" which allows you to create a pay per impression or click-though program or you can simply and easily track your own banner ad campaigns.

The following image shows the page that is displayed when you click on Ad Management from the WebAdmin menu.

When you first start using Ad Manager there won't be any ads listed on the page as shown in this example.

Initial Setup for Ad ManagementThe first step is to understand the sizes of the ads you can use with your site. The sizes and locations of ads can be predetermined through the site design process. The built-in sizes comply with industry standards.

As mentioned above, the location of ads requires ASP tags which tell the system that a certain ad goes in this 'position'. Once ads positions are defined, the tags can be created and positioned accordingly. Once the size is defined, any image loaded into a position will scale to fit the 'hole' created.

You can also setup and track banners by advertiser or campaign.

Ad Manager will use 'default advertiser' unless one is defined in order to track stats for impressions and click-throughs.

Adding Banner Ads

When you click on Add New Banner you are presented with fields for the Ad Name, where you want the user taken when they click on the ad, the 'alt text' you want to appear when the user moves the pointer over the ad, and selections for Advertiser, Link URL, Target, Size and Weighting. The following are brief explanations of each of these terms which are also shown in the image at the beginning of these instructions:

Ad Name: is a name you create that describes the ad.

Link URL: is the complete URL of the page you want the user taken to when they click on the ad.

Alt Text: is the words that will appear when the user moves the pointer over the image.

Enable Ad check box: allows you to turn the ad on or off.

Advertiser: each Advertiser defined in the initial setup will appear in the drop down list.

Target: you can instruct the action that happens when the ad is clicked by opening a new browser window (_blank) or change the page to the one defined in the Link URL field.

Ad Size: select the size of the ad from the standard sizes displayed. The ad should be created to meet these size standards and fit in the position selected.

Weighting: determines how often the ad will be displayed in relationship to the other ads defined for the position.

Once these fields are entered, click 'Save Changes' and the page will change to the Make Changes page where you can upload the ad "picture".

Uploading ads is a simple process of clicking the 'add picture' link shown in the example below.

This example also shows the way you can change or edit ads and how the ad is displayed after uploading. When click add picture you are presented with the following popup window whcih allows you to access your local files and select the image you want to have defined as the ad you are creating in Ad Manager.

One this completed, or when yo complete any changes, always remember to click "save changes". Test you ads by opeing you web site and clicking through to the pages where the ads are to appear and clicking refresh several times. Also come back to Ad Management and check the statistics.

* Requires knowledge of ASP. iPlan will provide initial placement of ad locations, as part of the WebAdmin setup charge, for up to 4 locations.

As always, if you have a problem or need support, contact iPlan using our support ticket system at the following URL.